| dc.description.abstract | Children's play poetry exhibits gender spaces owing to the children's reactions to social,
political and economic issues about their community. The gender spaces assigned to each
gender also depict gender roles as well as the children's reactions to their gendered
bodies on which poetry is inscribed to articulate societal norms and mores. Studies
conducted in children's poetry have not addressed gender spaces in children's poetry
more pointedly and any mention of it in those studies is incidental. The aim of this study
was to establish gender spaces in Maragoli children's play poetry. The objectives of the
study were to: analyze the depiction of feminine and masculine gender spaces in
Maragoli children's play poetry; examine how gendered bodies and subversive
signification are highlighted in Maragoli children's play poetry, and investigate how
gender, style and language are highlighted in Maragoli children's play poetry. The study
population comprised the play poems that added up to two hundred and twenty nine and
performance events - all of which were sampled using the proportional allocation so as to
use manageable data in the study. The sampled informants were drawn from five
locations in Sabatia District, namely Busali East, Busali West, Idzava North, North
Maragoli, and Wodanga. Three locations were used in Vihiga District namely Central
Maragoli, Mungoma and South Maragoli. Structured interview schedules were used to
collect primary data from one hundred and eight interviewees in the face to face
interviews using interview schedules. Focus group discussions were also conducted to
eight groups that had a total of eighty interviewees. Three primary schools in each district
were used to provide primary data. In Sabatia district, Keveye, Kigama and Tsimbalo
primary schools were used while Madira, Vigeze and Womulalu primary schools in
Vihiga were used. The data collected was analyzed using the hermeneutical analysis.
The study is justified because of its relevance to literary scholars who could use the play
poems to teach children's literature and orature Teachers of children's literature will
benefit from this study because children's play poetry is one of the sub-genres of
children's orature. Pre-school andprimary school curriculum developers will also benefit
from the study in their planning for children's song games along gender issues. Since
studies in gender are multidisciplinary, the results will benefit sociologists and
anthropologists. Anthropologists will use the Maragoli ethnography to discuss gender
spaces and compare them with those from western cultures. Since sociology is the study
of the development, structure, and functioning of human society, sociologists will benefit
from the spaces assigned to each gender in Maragoli children's play poetry. The study
showed that there were feminine, masculine and both the feminine and masculine gender
spaces in Maragoli children's play poetry. It was observed that the number of masculine
gender poems was thirty eight (38) compared to the sixty seven (67) feminine poems
because the masculine gender censored the information to divulge which the feminine
gender was receptive and generous. The school system also enabled Maragoli boys and
girls to play together thereby reinventing and redefining the gender spaces. This was
evident in the one hundred and twenty four poems performed by both genders together.
The review of related literature showed that there was a Luo poem that was performed in
a similar manner with a Maragoli one in which children stretched their feet with one of
them facing them as she lightly hit the outstretched feet with an object. Since
comparative studies were outside the scope of this study, it is recommended that such a
study be conducted using the historical-geographical theory. | en_US |
